• Awarded annually to 20 high school sophomores in the Oceanside Unified School District: 10 students at Oceanside High and 10 at El Camino High.

• Also offered to high school sophomores in Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim.

• Simon Scholars receive a laptop computer, an annual $500 stipend during their junior and senior years, leadership training, a makeover and business attire, an SAT prep course, help with college applications and applying for financial aid, up to $4,000 a year for college tuition and other help.

Oceanside High sophomore Marienel Pili had heard it brings good luck. So on a tour last year of UCLA, where she dreams of attending college, she rubbed the back paw of the university’s Bruin statue.

Last month, when Marienel learned she is one of 20 Oceanside teenagers this year to win a prestigious and lucrative Simon Family Scholarship, she knew that she was one step closer to realizing her dream.

“I always compare reaching my goals to getting on top of a mountain,” Marienel, 16, said at her high school. “I know that with a Simon scholarship, I’m halfway there.”

The Simon Family Foundation, headquartered in Newport Beach, recently announced its second class of Simon Scholars in Oceanside. The first group of 20 scholarship recipients was announced last year.

The students, all of whom are economically disadvantaged and have experienced a variety of personal challenges at home, will receive counseling, mentoring, financial assistance, computer equipment and other help as they strive toward a college education and financial independence.

It’s all geared to helping young people who face extraordinary challenges early in life — including the alienation and language barriers that can come with being immigrants, poverty, broken homes, parents who are incarcerated, and the lure of gangs and drugs.

“We’re getting a reputation as a life-changing organization,” said Kathy Simon Abels, the foundation’s executive director. “We’re really hoping the program helps … ignite a spark.”

In San Diego County, the scholarship is awarded only to sophomores in the Oceanside Unified School District — five girls and five boys from Oceanside High and five girls and five boys from El Camino High. The foundation also awards sophomores in the Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim unified school districts in Orange County.

In San Diego County, Oceanside Unified was chosen in part because of its ethnic and economic diversity, and also because its educators and staff are committed to working with the foundation to help scholarship winners succeed, Abels said.

In Oceanside, about 130 students applied for the scholarship, and Abels interviewed 16 finalists at each school. Students needed a minimum grade point average of 2.5 to apply.

The scholarship program, worth about $30,000 over the six-year term of the program, offers students more than just dollars.

Each scholar receives a laptop computer, an annual $500 stipend during their junior and senior years in high school, leadership training at a summer conference at Chapman University in Orange County and retreats for smaller groups of scholars designed to foster team building and self-esteem.

On one trip, scholars are taken to Fountain Valley, where they receive a makeover and new business attire.

During their junior and senior years, a program coordinator meets frequently with students to counsel them on classes, monitor their grades and offer general support. They also take a special course to prepare for the SAT. A separate college adviser helps the students apply to colleges and for financial aid.

In April of their junior year, they embark on a college tour during spring break. Last month, junior class scholars flew to San Francisco and toured UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Santa Clara University and San Francisco State University.

Once students are in college, they receive up to $4,000 per year in scholarship money.

Students must keep their grades up, meet certain standards of conduct, participate in scholarship events and be good ambassadors for the program in order to maintain their scholarship, Abels said.

Greg Furtado, a sophomore at Oceanside High and one of this year’s Simon Scholars, said the program will help him realize his goal of becoming a professional musician. Greg, whose aptitude in math has helped him in music, plays the oboe at Oceanside High. He plans to apply to The Julliard School in New York City.

“This is a huge opportunity for me,” said Greg, 16.

Marienel and Greg have faced big challenges.

Marienel, poised and articulate, didn’t know a word of English when she moved to the United States from the Philippines about six years ago. Self-motivated as a child, Marienel said she learned a lot of English from watching “Barney & Friends” on TV.

Up until the time she moved to the United States, she was largely separated from her father, who had come to the United States to earn enough money to bring his family here.

Marienel, her brother and their parents continue to struggle financially, and the family of four lives in an apartment.

“One day I want to build my own house because we never had our own,” Marienel said.

Greg is being raised by his father and grandmother, and for years he had little contact with his mother, who raised his two younger brothers in Temecula. She died of kidney failure last year, and today the rest of the family struggles financially.

Greg, soft-spoken and polite, said music allows him to express his emotions in a creative way, and he loves how classical pieces evoke the period of history in which they were written. He said that he plans to use some of the annual $500 stipend from the Simon Foundation for private music lessons.

“People have told me (the oboe is) the toughest instrument to play, and I’m pretty good,” he said.